


Garbage Angel

by Greyscales (sablescales)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Female Reader, Fluff, Garbage Dump (Undertale), Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Invisible Reader, Nudity, Platonic Relationships, Wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-01 22:39:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12714261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sablescales/pseuds/Greyscales
Summary: An introverted hermit from our world becomes the ‘guardian angel’ of the angel of the underground. This helps no one.Tags will change as characters and subjects are introduced. Nudity will only be in the beginning.





	1. What.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (From my notes)  
>  Wakes up with face in dirt. Naked. Very uncomfortable.

The caverns are cold, and without any barrier between you and the air, it raises every hair on your body. The air feels too alive for the underground, stirring restlessly around you like a puppy being denied attention, and it’s enough to wake you. The wind then immediately ceases.

A sliver of bright yellow appears in your right eye. Your left however is smushed against something soft and grainy. As your brain processes this, parts of your body you never knew you had now ache and seize, pulling from you an uninhibited moan of pain. There’s a fluttering sound like a blanket being shaken, and you startle. This causes a cascade of sensations you are not prepared for.

Oohh… **_Hello_** , world.

Slowly, you move your arms—at least, you think they’re your arms—and attempt to push yourself up into a sitting position. You frown when you fail, unable to feel your hands. Did you sleep in a weird position and cut off the blood flow to your arm again? It’s numb.

Your eyes finally, fully open to the dim light of the underground

That’s when you realize you’re naked.

* * *

You were always an avid reader of fanfiction. It was self-indulgent and admittedly embarrassing, but you enjoyed reading self-insert stories because you wanted to feel like you were apart of the adventure, yourself. Before the discovery of fan-fiction, there were choose-your-own-adventure books and magical adventures in the woods, but fanfiction gave you your first experience of _community_ … It wasn’t just your sister and you in the woods pretending to light the sky on fire whenever lightning flashed on a stormy day. It was hundreds upon thousands of people all participating in imagining themselves or others in another world… without a real sense of danger and worry.

Now that you’re here having a real adventure, those fluffy feelings are not what you’re feeling. You’re terrified. Terrified and naked. Very, very, naked.

Stiffly, you turn your head and stare dumbly at the obtuse appendages attached to your middle-back.

Wings, and they are black as sin.

You’re trying to ignore them, but they make it very hard. They’re broad, noisy, and control of them does not come easy, so you feel like a baby flailing about, trying to figure out motor control.

Moving your arm slightly, your right wing immediately juts out like it wants to clothesline someone.

You can feel your face twist in what could only be an expression of deep distress.

Just ignore it for now, you decide.

The flowers smell nice.

* * *

It takes you a while to muster up the courage to leave the sunny patch of flowers and explore the place. Every instinct in your body tells you the opaque darkness up ahead is not someplace you should be, but logic in the end tells you that you need to move. This isn’t your house. You don’t know how you got here, and you don’t know how far from civilisation you are. It could be days before you find your next meal or even water.

At the thought of necessities, Anxiety reminds you that **_you can only go a couple of days without water, and a couple days more without food._** It proceeds to detail every possible side effect to dehydration and lack of nutrition, reminding you painfully that you’re not in the best of shape, so you can probably expect to last much less than that.

You stop pulling at your hair and decide to bite the bullet. You stand up.

You collapse, blood rushing to your feet. Oh no, black spots in vision…

Eventually, you do make it to the next room.

There’s another patch of flowers, and then a door. It’s empty. The grass is burnt.

**_Why is it burnt?_ **

Despite the fear, you note with a small shred of hope that doors mean civilisation, usually. Unless these are ruins, which means all the people have long since left or died.

**_I wonder what could have made the people leave._ **

A wing hits the door on the way through, because nervousness apparently translates to stretching and puffing up to look real big. You think of an angry crow for a moment, and allow yourself to be humoured by the idea of yourself dive-bombing trespassers to your domain. Caw.

Your knees feel shaky. Biting the inside of your cheek, you continue forward.

The next room is enlightening.

Literally, it appears brighter than previous rooms. You’re not sure why, because there is no sunlight or other light source. The reason for your enlightenment is the answer to your nagging feeling of familiarity.

Oh god.

**_I know this place._ **

The sounds of traps being triggered up ahead lead you to think that the kid and Toriel might be up there. Or possibly just Toriel. Maybe even another monster. Toriel is… nice, right? Supposed to be? She welcomed Frisk, so maybe she would welcome you.

Then again, you aren’t exactly a child. You’re a grown-ass woman. Adult humans are much more complex than children. They’re resistant to change and have a great capacity to help or hurt. Monsters have every right to be cautious around you.

**_I’m so dead._ **

**_They’re going to kill me._ **

**_I’m not a cute child, I’m a scary adult human with added height and appendages. They’ll eviscerate me without a second thought._ **

**_I’m weak. I can’t defend myself. I’m going to die._ **

You crouch down for a moment and feel your breath quicken. Placing your head in your hands, a moment to simply breathe is necessary before you pass out. Your lungs ache but you force yourself to take deep, even breaths.

“Need… I need to keep going.”

A laugh breaks from your throat, and you gaze dumbly as everything that you are right now shakes in the crushing weight of future uncertainty and fear.

In the time you took having a minor breakdown, the person or persons up ahead have moved on. With a sense of urgency fuelling your anxiety, you quickly pass puzzles you only vaguely recall from the game you once watched your sister play. The familiarity should be comforting, you suppose, as that means you have some knowledge about the area, but it only serves to put you in a dream-like daze as you retreat into your mind and focus solely on the task of going forward.

You come to a room with a floor swamped by spikes, and are at a loss for a moment.

Then, seeing the deep moat surrounding the spikes, you remember that you know how to swim. Not too well, and your wings might get in the way, but you must go forward. **_You must keep going._** That’s how this is supposed to work, right? **_Find the person. Find Toriel. Find warmth, happiness, clothes._**

Getting wet won’t help you keep warm, especially since you’re naked, but…

You try to peer into the water, to see if anything is in there. You don’t see anything.

“This is a bad idea.”

Try it anyway. You slip quietly into the water, flinching at the temperature. Before you can chicken out, you dip your entire head under—a reflex from your time at the swimming pool—and paddle your way through the moat around the deadly carpet of spikes.

> Several Minutes Later...

“Wworst id.de.dea ever,” you stutter quietly.

You’re safe, but you’re now wet as well as naked and afraid. The water was a great practice in controlling your new appendages, which is an added bonus to the worst expenditure of energy you could give, but now you’re closer to what you assume is another person up ahead.

Attempting to wring out your hair only slightly helps the situation. Your wings have managed to somehow not absorb much water, and a quick shake removes most of the water’s weight. You give your wings a considering glance before letting them hug your form. It’s hard to walk like this, but you feel a bit warmer this way.

The next room, you finally see who the person(s) up ahead was/were. Toriel and the human child are walking down a long hallway.

You struggle to keep up.

Directly ahead of you, you spot a flash of yellow before it disappears again. The sight of that homicidal flower fills you with fear.

When you reach the end of the hallway, you lurk a few metres away, unsure how to catch their attention. Your wings hug your form tightly, protecting your modesty a little bit, but your fear keeps you from literally calling attention to yourself. Knees shaking, you reach desperately for the resolve to ask for help.

All too late, you start speaking, just as Toriel moves to leave. “Um, ex- exc-…”

The motherly monster leaves, obviously not hearing you.

The human child’s head turns, this way and that, seeming to hear but not see something.

“Hel- hello?”

They seem unsure and a bit afraid. You’re mystified by this. You’re standing in plain sight, so how could they not see you? They’re not blind, right? You ask if they can see you. They shake their head.

“Well, you can hear me, so that’s something,” you mumble, starting to feel the beginning of relief rush through you at the thought that if you are invisible (probably?), your nudity won’t be so apparent. On the other hand, this complicates the situation.

“I woke up in the underground, and I don’t know what to do or how to get back to where I was. Do you mind if I keep you company for a while?”

They seem unsure, but ultimately, they shrug and you take that as an okay.

You beam at them, not that they can see, but your voice has an audible smile in it as you say, “Thank you. It’s a little less scary with company around.”

Walking forward a bit, your bare feet making soft taps barely heard in the absolute silence. Settling a few feet away, you kneel on the ground with your wings still firmly pressed against yourself.

“So, I’m assuming you’re waiting here for that person to come back. Why don’t we introduce ourselves? My name is…” You tell them your name. “What’s your name?”

Frisk. Not Chara, or any version of your name. You consider this a good thing, and pray they are a good kid, instead of the absolute horror you know they could potentially be. You think of the possibility of there being a Player ultimately controlling their actions, but in this scenario so far, it seems unlikely. Chara probably exists, but not as some kind of manifestation of the Player’s ego or what.

Some time later, you both are out of things to talk about, and the hallway becomes oppressively silent.

Frisk decides to call Toriel. A conversation you’ve definitely heard before happens, and then it is back to silence.

A couple minutes after that, Frisk calls again, and another conversation that you’ve heard before occurs. It definitely doesn’t appear that Toriel will be coming back soon. You say this with certainty, though the words are redundant as you both certainly realize this.

“Call this a hunch, but if the earlier rooms are any indication, and with both of our heads together on this, we’d have little trouble with any traps up ahead. Heck, I swam around the spike trap in the earlier room… Anything is possible when you put your mind to it.”

Your reasoning seems to win over the kid, and you follow their lead out of the room. With a cautious eye, you watch as they move toward a pile of leaves. You don’t see anything above it, but you know the Save Star is there. Perhaps only those with great amounts of determination can see it? You try being determined to see it, but it only serves to give you a headache. Ow. Fine. Time for another strategy.

You ask pleasantly, “All saved?”

You throw caution to the wind, because there’s more to be gained by risking asking.

The kid jerks as if they’ve been caught stealing from the cookie jar. Bingo.

“It’s alright,” you soothe, “I’m sure they’re there for a reason. Like my papa always says, it’s better to have it and never need it, than to need it and not have it. So, save often.”

They look down at the Star with a complicated look on their face that you didn’t expect they could make. In the game they were always making that one face that never changed, but up close and real, you now see the nuances of their minute expressions. They look like they’re having an internal struggle.

“Hey now, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’ll be alright. You’ve got _me_ here, and even if it’s not alright, we’ll _make_ it alright, alright?” You gently place your hand on their shoulder.

They startle a bit, but don’t move away. After a moment, you remove your hand and move toward a doorway that you know leads to the candy.

“Hey look, this room has candy!” You let your voice be filled with enthusiasm, partway actual excitement and partway an attempt to lighten the mood.

It sort-of seems to work. Though worry threatens to crease your brow, you try to stay positive. Frisk needs to stay determined if they’re to survive the underground. That look on their face is not one you want to see again. It reminds you too much of your little sister. She was the same age when you noticed the troubled look she often had on her face… Those are bad memories you don’t want to relive.

“Hey, as much as I want to try monster candy, why don’t you hold onto one for me? Yeah, grab another for me. I don’t have any pockets, see... or, don't see. Haha.”

“Thanks, Frisk.” You ruffle their hair, and they swat your hand. With a laugh, you move to leave the room, your laugh leading Frisk further into the Ruins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nudity as mentioned in the tags will only be for the beginning, because you've crossed worlds and apparently didn't/don't have your clothes. Death will certainly feature in this fic, but I'll only put a warning up if it's graphic. It shouldn't be, but please be aware of it. Thank you!


	2. Have you done this before?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow the child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: References to self harm / suicide.
> 
> Also, I hate how I wrote this chapter. It's really stilted and lacking any definition. I'm going to go over it, so expect changes.

You notice a few things about Frisk as you alternate between following and leading them. They disregard your advice more often than not, choosing to ignore you most times.

You reason that part of this is because no one else knows you exist, not able to see you or apparently hear you. Yes, you tried a bunch of things to get yourself noticed, but to no avail. Maybe it’s because none of the monsters so far were boss monsters, or maybe it’s because you’re a ghost? Either way, you understand why Frisk might feel hesitant in engaging conversation with you. If the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t want to be seen talking to yourself like a crazy person. If it was you in Frisk’s situation, you might even question if the strange voice is just the mind’s way of coping with a stressful situation.

You understand, but still, it hurts just a bit. The protagonist and angel of the _Under Tale_ , ignoring you, feels like a burn to your self esteem or what’s left of it since you ended up here.

Exhaling softly in thought, you think of another possible reason behind them ignoring you. They could already know what you’re telling them, making your advice meaningless. Though their moves aren’t always perfect or correct, most of the time they manage just fine without you.

**_It’s like they’ve done this before._ **

A chill rocks your spine at the thought. Fingers dig into your arms as you try to ward off the sinking feeling deep inside you. Something hurts, you don’t know where, but it’s like sharp edges are carving into it and it’s bleeding out the vital essence that makes you, you.

**_They don’t need you._ **

You curl into yourself a bit, feeling your everything try to shrink in self deprecation. A loose feather falls to the ground in front of you. Movement slows to a crawl, your blood goes cold, and your gaze is fixed at the kid’s back but not _seeing_ anything.

> _“I don’t need you!”_  
>  * Red, red, red…  
>  _“LeT Me **DiE!!**_ ”  
>  * Why must she always fight? The sirens aren’t coming fast enough.  
> 

Blink.

You inhale sharply at your name being called, and keep blinking until you’re seeing Frisk and not… someone else. This doesn’t happen too often anymore, so it catches you off guard when you realize what’s happening. You remind yourself who you’re staring at. Frisk. This is Frisk.

“Sorry… what…?” You whisper, shaken.

Frisk is holding something up. Currently facing their back, you can’t see what it is until you move around them. The thing they’re holding is a large feather as black as—hey, that’s yours!

“Hey! Wait a minute,” you shout, “you can see that?”

They startle badly, not expecting you so close. You wince, and mumble an apology.

“How come you can see _that_ and not _me?_ ”

Frisk shrugs.

Disappointed but not hopeless, you start thinking there’s a chance you might figure out a solution to your ghost problem. 

You know three things: (1) You can make physical contact with Frisk, (2) the feathers that leave your body can be seen as well as touched, and (3) Frisk can hear you, but no one else can.

While 1 and 3 can be explained as symptoms of being a ghost, 2 doesn’t fit in. They have a physical piece of you in their hands, and they can see it. Whatever affliction you have going, it doesn’t seem like ‘ghost’ quite explains it.

You’re filled with hope.

* * *

The interesting thing about encounters in this world is that everything appears normal from an outside perspective until you enter the encounter. You’ve done this a couple of times with Frisk. At first, you just wanted to push Frisk out of the way of some magic attacks, but in the instant you made contact, you saw a flicker of something else.

> * The world is dark except the white figure of the monster and the insanely bright crimson of the kid’s soul. You can see options lined up neatly in front of them…  
> 

The moment your hand left the kid’s back, the vision cleared. You tried a number of things to bring that vision to your eyes again, but nothing you thought of worked to bring it back. Entering the encounter will take more than simple contact.

You’ve tried a few things since then, but nothing consistently works. You’re frustrated, but try to stay hopeful.

A familiar ghost is up ahead. With a smile, you prod Frisk forward. Napstablook is such a great guy. What a sweetie. You definitely want Frisk to meet this ghost, saying as much to them as you lead them along.

“ZZZZZZZZZZZ… Are they gone yet?”

You giggle as Frisk tries to get the ghost to move. The crunch of leaves is a soothing sound, filling up the otherwise stifling quiet that defines the Ruins. Frisk, as if encouraged by your reaction, tries numerous times to politely get the ghost to move, getting similar results. Finally, they seem to give in and attempt to physically move the ghost. Leaves fly up in the air and scatter as they fall through the ghost into the leaf pile. 

“Oomph!”

Startlingly, you’re pulled into the encounter.

> * Here comes Napstablook.  
> 

You shake, not sure what to think of this turn of events. You weren’t even in contact with Frisk, at all!

“Wh-Why am I in the encounter, too?”

“Oh no… I upset you…”

After a beat, you realize they were talking directly to you. The ghost's eyes are on you. _They can see you._


End file.
